How do you match your content to your product roadmap?

From my experience, working with dozens of early stage technology companies, product and market need to be developed in parallel. You should not be building any product until you have real customers who articulate a pain you can address, can explain what you need to do to eliminate that pain. Now, get that customer to commit to your solution - that is key to demonstrate real need and urgency. Working these 'design partners' is THE ONLY way to get to market today. Pivoting is not an option. Many companies will run out of resources if they don't do it right the first time.

Here is the chicken and egg problem. Content can drive people to expose what they want in a new product or version. I use content to engage people in the conversation to help the company find the new features and needs to include in the new product. Once the roadmap for the product is available, the content will help validate customers' interest in getting the new product.

Creating content based on scenarios where each feature of the product help to nurture the product manager with feedback from potential customers while the product is being developed. An exemplary sequence of publications will be precious in identifying the priorities of the customers and their interest in ordering the product.

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭! For many years we have worked recurringly with the largest retailers. We usually help them to optimize their consumers' customer journey systematically, the right timing of content will significantly increase your results. You should; • At the top funnel, focus on selecting content that creates awareness and interest, influencer, live shopping, or marketing video. • When gained interest, follow-up with a video that shortly presents 2-3 USP benefits or features. • Finally, building trust and comfort for the product is best done via user reviews and expert ratings. Also important to show the same ad twice. #ecommerce #retail #midfunnel

The initial design should have something new / improved to offer. It is important to have at least a number of end users providing consistent and documented feedback throughout your journey. The selection of these users is also important.

While you don’t want to get *too* far over your skis, you don’t have the luxury in the fast-paced world of tech of waiting until products and features are fully hardened to start evangelizing about them. Admittedly, each situation is different, and it’s an inexact science, but six months before something goes live is probably a good time to start beating the drum. A year is a bit too early, and a month is definitely too late.

Sharing how the product will be introduced into the market invite potential customers to get in touch with the company to set joint campaigns that will benefit the company and its customers.

Not only should your content calendar align with your product roadmap, but it must also be driven by your messaging cadence. Buying is typically cyclical and not all customer concerns or pain points are equally prevalent at every point in the calendar. It's useful to emphasize messages at specific points in time where they align with the buying cycle and publish your content accordingly. For ex., be sensitive to budget/spend cycles ("fiscal crunch time" vs. budget renewal) and take advantage of the urgency, or lack thereof, inherent to these milestones. This demonstrates yet another aspect of customer responsiveness.

In my experience, there is often a question of how to evaluate the success of content since it is so resource-intensive to produce. Yes of course, we can look at statistics of content, such as how many times was a video asset played through, or how many people downloaded or engaged with a blog. But ultimately, it comes down to this question: did this content convert better than the alternatives? In a PLG model, for example, did the onboarding guide video version convert users to first success better than the onboarding guide written version. In an SLG model, did the website demo convert more qualified prospects vs. the static content? This is a way to fold metrics and growth marketing to continuously improve.

To match your content with your product roadmap effectively, understand the roadmap thoroughly, collaborate with the product team, and create timely and customer-focused content that highlights the product's value and benefits. This ensures that your marketing efforts align with the product's development goals and resonate with your target audience, driving better product adoption and customer satisfaction

One crucial point to add: map also the available channels of communication and their characteristics and adapt content to these channels. Behavioral segmentation of customers based on communication preferences is a must.